Brittany Haas, Jordan Tice, and Paul Kowert are three of the most exciting young voices in acoustic music today.

Brittany was a Bay Area teenager when she began touring at the age of 14 with Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings, and a Princeton student in the Department of Evolutionary Biology when she joined the seminal chamber-grass band Crooked Still. Since then, she’s toured with Tony Trischka, the Yonder Mountain String Band, the Waybacks, and Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas (her cello-playing sister), and played on Steve Martin’s Grammy-winning album, The Crow, as well as performing in his band on Saturday Night Live. She currently plays in a fiddle duo with Lauren Rioux, an all-girl indie old-time band called The Fundies, and the Brittany Haas/Dan Trueman Band, which released the album Criss Cross in 2011. “There’s no one I’d rather listen to play the violin than Brittany Haas,” says Matt Glaser, the founder and artistic director of the American Roots Music Program at the Berklee College of Music. “Her playing just slays me.”

Paul studied bass with Edgar Meyer at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, moved to Brooklyn, and joined the Punch Brothers, whose most recent album, Who’s Feeling Young Now?, won praise from Rolling Stone for its “wild virtuosity.” The band’s song “Dark Days” is one of the hits from the soundtrack of The Hunger Games. Paul has also recorded with Mike Marshall’s Big Trio, the Jordan Tice Trio, Dierks Bentley, Fiona Apple, and Sarah Jarosz, and appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, Austin City Limits, and Late Night with David Letterman. His music blends bluegrass, classical, and folk, and his appetite for pushing the bass further – practically using it as a fiddle – makes him one of the most original bass players working today.

Jordan studied music at Towson University while performing and recording with such musicians as Mark Schatz, Frank Wakefield, and Darol Anger. Before graduation, he recorded an album with Wes Corbett and Simon Chrisman that the Chicago Tribune named to its Top Five Best Albums of 2008 in bluegrass / newgrass, and that same year he released an album of originals, Long Story, that the website Bluegrass Unlimited praised for its “engaging and melodic tunes” and “inspired solos.” In 2011, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine featured him on the cover, and last summer he played in As You Like It as part of New York City’s esteemed “Shakespeare in the Park” series. His latest album, The Secret History, features Paul Kowert and Simon Chrisman. Jordan has great technical skill on guitar as well as a gift for melody and improvisation.

Brittany, Paul, and Jordan are all virtuosos on their instruments, but what marks their collaboration is their commitment to learning from each other and creating something new. If you want a taste of what they’re cooking up, check them out at the Freight!